[apohn]

Unfortunately recruiters lie about "exclusivity" as well.

About a year ago I was on the job market and multiple recruiters reached out to me with the exact same job listing, just with the company name removed. All of them claimed to have an exclusive relationship with the company and they were working directly with the hiring manager. With 5 minutes of Googling I found the original position and the company that posted it.

Do they get penalized if they present a candidate for the job and the company says "No recruiters" and they remove the candidate from their candidate pool?

[benglish11]

penalized by who? It works enough that tech recruiters and their agencies make a lot of money. If there is no agreement between the company and the recruiter the company is free to contact that applicant themselves. The recruiter will usually hide the contact information of the applicant for this reason.

Enough hiring companies only care about getting a seemingly qualified applicant in for an interview and will ignore what ever shady things recruiters do.

[HWR_14]

He's asking if he, as a candidate, will get blackballed by the company if a recruiter submits his resume. I think you're assuring him he will not.